This Paper has won Consolation Prize in "Opsyrus 2005", the CoolAvenues.com - OIG (IIM Lucknow) Paper Writing Competition held in October 2005.

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Abstract

Lean manufacturing holds great potential for India to enter in global markets as a competitive player. The area of lean production has been vastly explored and practiced by successful organizations of developed nations. India can learn from an array of such practices and understand the implied thinking that forms a lean strategy. We propose the Value Progression Model as a macro level strategy to bring lean manufacturing practices in India. To match the macro efforts, we develop a C-Lean Approach to be followed by organizations at their own micro level. Together these should bring about successful change from mass production to lean manufacturing in India.

Introduction

In every developed country, it is the manufacturing industry that has spurred economic growth. It not only creates wealth but more importantly, absorbs and recreates the same many times over, within the economy. This is also true for India where the growth in manufacturing sector will provide the necessary impetus to a sustained growth of the economy forward and create employment opportunities for our people. The IT industry, for over the last decade, provided the same catalytic effect to economic growth. However, one industry by itself cannot enable the growth of economy and provide enough job opportunities for the millions of people in the employment market. Economies of Asian countries, such as Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and others have been transformed only by the growth of there manufacturing industries.

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* Contributed by -
Karthik Nagarajan & Manan Vansola,
Faculty of Management Studies,
University of Delhi.